Household care compositions comprise various ingredients which, individually or in combination, give said compositions the usual properties for the use for which they are intended, or modify certain properties. Cleaning compositions, for example, often comprise surfactants. Certain compositions comprise polymers, for example in order to give them particular rheological properties (for example to thicken them) or in order to modify surface properties, especially by deposition.
There is a constant need for novel ingredients, especially for polymers, and for novel combinations, in order to design household care compositions that have new properties, improved properties, or more simply to conserve the same properties with simpler and/or more economical compositions.
The patent application filed at the European Patent Office on Sep. 20, 2007 under the number 07291118.3 describes, for example, the use of certain cationic linear statistical copolymers for improving foam stability especially in laundry-care foaming compositions. However, the compositions comprising this copolymer cannot prevent the redeposition of soiling on the laundry. There is a need for polymers for improving the foam stability and for improving the prevention of redeposition.
Document WO 2007/071591 describes the use of nanogels for treating hard surfaces. Said document especially teaches, in examples 3.1 and 3.2, that star copolymers containing cationic peripheral branches can facilitate the cleaning of bathroom surfaces. However, these copolymers require sequential multistep polymerization processes, which make them expensive. Relative to star copolymers, there is a need for compounds that are simpler to prepare and/or for compounds that have applicative advantages at least of the same order of magnitude, if not higher, and/or that moreover have other advantages. There is also a need for polymers that afford a longer-lasting treatment, for example that afford ease of cleaning even after more time and/or being subjected to treatments with water, for example during rinsing, splashing or cleaning in the absence of polymer. The document also teaches, in example 6.1, that nanogels composed of a neutral core C without peripheral branches afford good hydrophilization. There too there is also a need for polymers that afford a longer-lasting treatment, for example that afford ease of cleaning even after more time and/or being subjected to treatments with water, for example during rinsing, splashing or cleaning in the absence of polymer.
Moreover, nanogels or microgels and processes for preparing them have been described in the literature.
Document. WO 2004/048 429 describes a process for preparing microgels based on monofunctional and multifunctional monomers in which the reactivity of these two types of monomer is appropriately chosen so as to produce discrete particles with an average molecular mass of at least 105. In the examples, noncationic nanogels based especially on methyl (meth)acrylate are prepared.
Document WO 2004/048 428 describes microgels that are characterized by certain rheological properties. In the examples, noncationic nanogels based especially on methyl (meth)acrylate are prepared.
Document WO 0056792 describes gels prepared from triethylenically unsaturated monomers. In the examples, noncationic nanogels based especially on acrylamide are prepared.
Document WO 98/31739 describes the preparation of nanogels by controlled radical polymerization using nitroxides. In the examples, noncationic nanogels based especially on styrene monomers are prepared.
There is a need for other polymers, that may find use in compositions for household care.